FAMILY-OWNED bakery giant, Proton Bakers plans to increase its bread output over the coming months and hopes to increase its footprint across the country, NewsDay Business can report.
The company, which is headquartered in Marondera, has seen its product range growing over the past 61 years to include a wide range of bread, confectionery, cookies and sponge cake mix.
The bakery was founded by Peter Tselentis, who was born on the Greek Island of Kefalonia.
Proton chief sales officer Daniel Chipato told NewsDay Business on the sidelines of the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair last week that the company’s plans were designed to keep up with the surging market demand.
“Definitely in this environment, you always look at plans to expand: firstly, the product range, secondly, the market share and because of the growing demand for our products, we are obviously looking at expanding our output,” he said.
“So, within the next few months, you should expect us to produce more bread in a way just to try and fulfil the market needs. We are proud to say in terms of capacity utilisation, barring other challenges within the economy, we operate mostly at more than 90%.
“Currently, we are not able to service the entire country with our bread. So, we can’t really talk of market share because we’ve got limited product output, but obviously as we expand our output, we are targeting probably 45% of the national market share for bread.”
According to Chipato, the company has been pushing an increase of 140 000 loaves per day, and it is now looking to increase that number to meet demand.
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“When we expand, we want to satisfy the market needs and because if you look at the interaction with our customers, people are asking for the bread. We have that challenge to produce more bread and be able to fulfil the market needs,” he said.
Chipato said in order to lower import costs, they mostly rely on local suppliers of wheat.
“So, we have endorsed that aspect using the Buy Zimbabwe campaign. So, we are quite happy with the local products and I’m sure if you look at the developments that have actually been happening within the country, this year the country received a bumper harvest,” he said.
Chipato said the company employed a total of 1 800 workers across the country.
